Transcript Secular Music in the Middle Ages

Secular Music: Middle Ages
 Music did exist outside of the church.
 1st notated secular music: 12th & 13th centuries:
Troubadours and Trouveres : French Nobles…
 Most Famous: Troubadour Guillaume IX, duke of
Aquitaine; trouvere Chastelain de Couci
 Knights had reputations as musical poets
 Most preserved because clerics wrote them down.
Secular Music: Middle Ages
 Songs performed by court minstrels
 Most deal with love, but some about the
Crusades,dance songs and spinning songs
 Southern France: women troubadours addressed songs
to men
Secular Music: Middle Ages
 About 1650 Troubadour and Trovere melodies
preserved
 Notation does not indicate rhythm, but had a regular
meter and a clear beat,unlike gregorian chant
Secular Music: Middle Ages
 Wandering minstrels ( jongleurs----juggler)
 Music and acrobatics in castles, taverns and town
squares
 Didn’t have rights and on the lowest social class, same
level as prostitutes and slaves
 Few found work in the service of the nobility
 Provided information like newspaper (tabloid)
 Performed songs written by others; played
instrumental dances on harps fiddles and lutes
Estampie
 Medieval dance
 Oldest surviving instrumental dance forms
 Single melodic line notated, but does not specify
instrument
 Instrumental accompaniments were probably
improvised for most dance tunes
 Most just added a drone-two notes repeated at an
interval of a fifth
 In triple meter, strong fast beat
Development of Polyphony
 Most music was monophonic, one line of music
 Between 700-900 AD, monks in monasteries began
adding second line to Gregorian chant
 Second line was improvised, not notated
 Duplicated chant melody at different pitch.
 Written in parallel motion, note against note at the
interval of a 4th or 5th
Organum
 Gregorian chant with one or more additional melodic
lines
 Between 900-1200, organum became truly polyphonic
 2nd melodic line began to be more independent of the
1st line
 Sometimes in contrary motion
 1100,2nd line even more independent, different
rhythms
 Bottom chant long notes, top chant shorter notes
School of Notre Dame
 1150 Paris-intellectual and artistic capital of Europe
 Paris became center of polyphonic music
 University of Paris attracted leading scholars of the
time
 Cathedral of Notre Dame (1163) epitome of gothic
architecture
 Known composers : Leonin and Perotin (School of
Notre Dame)
School of Notre Dame
 1170-1200 composers developed rhythmic innovations
 Use of measured rhythm, with definite time values and meter
 1st time in history , precise rhythms and pitches
 Initially notation indicated certain rhythmic patterns and beat
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was subdivided into threes
Most sounds hollow and thin by today’s standards
Few triads (later, triad became basic consonant chord structure)
Triad initially was considered dissonant
As middle ages advanced, triads were used more often;
polyphonic music became more rich by our standards